The hydrocarbon exploration and production industry is very efficient at identification and extraction of hydrocarbons from new hydrocarbon reserves. However, current estimates are that 65% of the world's hydrocarbon reserves reside in previously developed fields (i.e., mature assets). That is, over half the world's hydrocarbon reserves may reside in fields were the initial exploration and drilling took decade ago or more.
As whole, the hydrocarbon industry is less efficient at increasing hydrocarbon production from mature assets. There may be many factors contributing to the lower efficiency in increasing hydrocarbon production from mature assets, such as a lack of information regarding the wells (e.g., wells drilled before the widespread use of computers, wells drilled before development of modern formation evaluation tools) and/or the somewhat overwhelming task of analysis (e.g., older fields having on the order of 15,000 wells).